Okay
by Ninazadzia
Summary: Peter/Tris, college AU. Tris Prior doesn't know what to make of Peter Hayes. One minute he attacks her, and the next, he's saving her life. One minute he gropes her, and the next, he's kissing her sweetly. "Pick a side, Peter. Are you good, or are you bad? Because I just can't tell."


**"Okay"**

By Ninazadzia

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And then they were kissing.

Her first thought was, _no. Dear God, no. _It was hard to sneak a glance, what with all of the face-to-face interaction that was going on, but she did anyway, just to confirm that what was happening was real. And, God. It was real—the six foot two, dark haired, pale reality, to be specific. _Peter Hayes _was kissing her, and they were alone, inebriated, after a night on the town.

Did she know Peter? In a sense. He was Christina's ex boyfriend, so from the beginning she knew _plenty _about him, way more than she should've. (He had a slightly bigger than average dick, a birthmark on his left peck, and his ears turned red when he lied. Yeah, that was the kind of stuff Christina picked up on.) He was a talented wrestler, so talented that (when they were in high school) he won county and section titles. But—at least according to Christina—he did a lot of thinking with the head below his pants. And he was kind of a general douche bag.

Tris had been at a party in high school with him. The night they'd met, he got a little handsy—he tried to feel her up by the pong table. "No," she'd said to him. His hand had slid under her shirt, and he breathed down her neck.

"Barely a fistful," he muttered. She couldn't tell if he was disgusted or just too drunk to realize how he sounded.

"Peter, _stop," _she'd said, more forcefully.

He didn't. He kept groping at her, and it wasn't until Tobias—her then boyfriend—removed him from her (and then beat the living _shit _out of him) that he left her alone.

She wasn't "upset" when they found out they'd be going to the same college—"upset" was an understatement. "Angry" fit much, _much _better. Because of all of the colleges in America, of all fifteen applications she'd written and all eight acceptances she'd received . . . of all of the _thinking _she'd done, until she'd finally narrowed it down to Connecticut College and Vanderbilt, she ultimately went with Vanderbilt because (even though it was much farther away from home) it was just a better school and she knew she would enjoy herself there _much, much _more.

Until she didn't. Until she found out that not only were her and Peter going to the same college, they were on the _same floor _in the _same dorm_, which meant that she'd have to see his fucking face every single day for _four fucking years._

And then came the incident. Thinking about it was unsettling, but hey, that's what happens when you're making out with your former arch-nemesis—the unpleasant stuff kind of comes out.

To keep it simple: Peter saved her ass. She was drunk, and alone, and in a very, _very _bad situation. It involved two other men. They didn't go to Vanderbilt, and they had easily eight or nine years on her. They were drunk, but they didn't care. They didn't have any problem hauling her into a dark room, at some frat party she couldn't even remember wanting to go to.

He'd heard her screaming, so he came in. Would he have been able to take them down if they weren't drunk? Probably not. But Peter had a few inches on them, and sobriety (and multiple wrestling titles) on his side, so he took them both out. It was fast (one punch to the groin, one to the side), and before she knew it, he'd scooped her up and walked her home.

When Peter had walked in, they hadn't succeeded in doing much more than taking her shirt off a ripping it in the process. Had she been sober, she would've spent the entire walk home feeling _incredibly _self conscious and vulnerable, what-with all of the crying and visible sideboob she had going on.

But "self-consciousness" and "awareness" wasn't what happened. What happened was a lot of shirt-sobbing, followed by a lot of numbness and then (weirdly) silence.

She'd lost her key, so he'd taken her back to his room. He set her up on his bed, and pulled a chair up next to her, and worked with the covers.

"I'm sorry," he'd said.

"For what?"

_Yeah, I'm too fucking drunk for this right now._

"For almost being one of them." He jerked his head in the direction of her attackers. "Sophomore year, I mean—you remember, right?"

She racked her brain, but came up blank. "No?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "We'll talk about it in the morning. But I just wanted to apologize."

So they did talk about it. They met for coffee, he said he was sorry, blah blah blah "I was young and stupid," blah blah blah "I was drunk," blah blah blah "I'd had the biggest crush on you," blah blah blah "let's not hate each other, please?" ("PS. I saved your life last night. You owe me.")

Yeah, hell, she did owe him. But she owed him in terms of having his back, being there for him, etcetera—_not _sexual favors. So she returned to the present, and pushed him off of her.

"Stop," she demanded. "Just . . . just let me think—"

"You want to know what I think?" He looked at her for a second, and laughed before saying, "I think I'm love with you."

His words were slurring, and he was losing his balance.

_Don't you dare go there, Peter. Don't you fucking there._

"You're _drunk,"_ she whined.

"So?" He moved closer to her, and reached his hand forward. He put it on her shoulder. "I've always loved you. Maybe that's why I used to be so mean to you."

She pushed his hand off. "C'mon, Peter—"

"Actually, no. I was mean to you because I thought you were a bitch."

It was a blow, even if it was directed at her fifteen-year-old self. She started to walk away, her heels tapping against the Nashville concrete. She wanted to open her mouth, and tell him off, and say, _go home, Peter, you're drunk._ But she didn't, because she knew that the only sound that would come out of her would be crying.

Because she was wrong. She was wrong, wrong, _so _wrong to think that she could ignore the undying attraction she'd felt for him, ever since that night. Ever since he'd protected her from the assholes that'd assaulted her. Ever since she'd forgiven him for some innocent-by-comparison chest groping, and ever since she realized that, yes, people _do _change, people _will _surprise you, and people will become surprisingly attractive to you once you _see the good in them._

She saw the good in Peter, alright. And it _terrified her._

"I'm sorry," he croaked after her, "for calling you a bitch."

She stopped in her tracks, and turned around. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she asked.

"Well, I'm drunk."

"No, I mean, _what the fuck is wrong with you?"_ She walked forward, and didn't stop until she was in his face. "While you're dating my best friend, you try to _feel me up._ You spend the rest of high school treating me like a piece of _shit,_ and then when you get to college, you _save my ass _and pile on the apology and the 'let's be friends!' bullshit. And then you molest my face for ten minutes, tell me you love me, tell me I'm a bitch, apologize, and then blame it on the fact that you're _drunk—"_ she stopped short, throwing her bag onto the ground in frustration.

She could practically see the gears turning in his head.

"Tris—"

_"Pick a goddamn side."_

He stared at her, blankly. "What?"

"Are you good, or are you bad, Peter? Pick a _fucking side._" She grabbed his collar, and pulled him into her. She smelled the whiskey on his breath—"bad decisions in a bottle," he'd mused—and stared into his stony eyes. "Because I just can't fucking tell, and it's exhausting."

He reached a hand up, and stroked her hair. "I'm good," he croaked. He ran his hand up and down her hair, up and down her back. "I promise, I'm good. Or at least I want to be." Even though his eyes were clouded over from the alcohol, she'd never seen him look so sincere, or so innocent. The words he whispered next were enough to shatter her frustration. "So can you let me? Can you let me be good to you?"

She leaned in, and whispered in his ear, "okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay."

He pulled away, and his face broke out in a crooked grin. He crushed his lips against hers, and finally, she reciprocated. She let herself sink into him. _Let me be good to you._

"If we do this," she breathed in between kisses, "we do this my way."

"Okay."

More kissing.

"I'm in the driver's seat. I'm the one in control."

"Okay."

More kissing. Some butt fondling—not that she minded.

"If we go too far, and if I say stop, we _stop."_

"Okay, okay, okay."

He went for the neck, this time. But she pulled his hair back, stopping him, and forced him to look her in the eye.

"If I ever hurt you again, like I did in high school," he managed, "I'll hate myself for forever." He ran her hands up and down her arms. She still wasn't sure, and he knew it. He knew it just from the look on her face.

"Tris?"

"Yeah."

"I wasn't kidding when I said that I was in love with you."

"I know. You're just extremely drunk."

He smiled. "So are you."

She leaned in, right up against his lips, and whispered, _"okay."_

* * *

"_I'll put your poison in my veins_

_They say the best love is insane, yea_

_I'll light your fire till my last day_

_I'll let your fields burn around me, around me_

_If that's what you wanted"_

**-What You Wanted, **OneRepublic

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**A/N: Because in the words of Augustus Waters, "okay is just BURSTING with sensuality."**

**This fic is pretty much as by-the-book Ninazadzia as you can get: drinking aaaaaand love-hate sex. Yep.**

**Thank you SO much for reading! Expect an update for Distractions and Eternal Sunshine sometime in the next few days - if you haven't already read those, do ittttttt :P #shamelessplug.**

**I love you guys.**

**xx Nina**


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